Religulous /rɨˈlɪɡʉlÉ™s/ ; also /rɨˈlɪdÊ'ʉlÉ™s/ is a 2008 American documentary film written by and starring comedian Bill Maher and directed by Larry Charles.
The title of the film is a portmanteau derived from the words religious and ridiculous. The documentary examines and mocks religion and religious belief.
Contents
A range of views on various world religions is explored as Bill Maher travels to numerous religious destinations including Jerusalem, the Vatican, and Salt Lake City, interviewing believers from a variety of backgrounds and groups. These include a former member of Jews for Jesus, Christians, Muslims, former Mormons, and Hasidic Jews. Maher travels to Speakers' Corner in Hyde Park, London, where he "preaches" Scientology beliefs.
Maher also takes a tour around Creation Museum and the Holy Land Experience.
Production
Maher said he used a fake title "A Spiritual Journey" for the film to obtain interviews. Creationist Ken Ham of the group Answers in Genesis, who appeared in the film, was critical of what he called Maher's "deception" to obtain the interview.
The documentary was produced by Thousand Words and distributed by Lions Gate Entertainment. Originally slated for an international release date coinciding with the Christian Easter holiday 2008 (March 23), post-production delays resulting from a screenwriters guild strike pushed the release date back. The film was eventually released on October 3, 2008.
Box office
Religulous had an opening weekend take of $3.5 million from an early October 1 release in Los Angeles and New York City and also a limited 502-theater release, averaging $6,972 per theater. As a result, the film was ranked at #10 at the box office that weekend. Its per-screen receipts were almost three times those of a competing film to which it has been compared in the media, the politically conservative An American Carol, which edged out Religulous to finish at #9 over the same weekend, but had a per theater average of only $2,325. Only the #1 movie, Beverly Hills Chihuahua, at $9,020, had a higher per-screen average than Religulous.
For the second weekend, Religulous had a 35.5% drop in box office receipts and dropped to #13 with a gross of $2,200,000 at 568 theaters for a per screen average of $3,873.
Religulous grossed over $13 million after having a production budget of $2.5 million. As of 2012, it's 15th among the highest grossing documentaries in the US and was the highest grossing documentary of 2008.
Reception
Reviews for Religulous were generally positive. The film received a rating of 70% from Rotten Tomatoes based on 149 reviews, and a score of 56 out of 100 at Metacritic based on 31 reviews. Film critic Roger Ebert gave the film a rating of three and a half out of four stars, and wrote: "I report faithfully that I laughed frequently. You may very well hate it, but at least you've been informed. Perhaps you could enjoy the material about other religions, and tune out when yours is being discussed. That's only human nature."
Robert W. Butler of The Kansas City Star gave the film a rating of three stars, and commented: "The film is one-sided, less a measured argument than a bunch of rants and barbed observations. But it’s also very funny, which trumps everything else." Owen Gleiberman of Entertainment Weekly gave the film a rating of A-, and wrote: "The movie is funny as...well, hell." The Canadian Press said the movie "delivers a laugh-out-loud attack on the most sacred of cows." Christie Lemire, of the Associated Press, wrote: "If you're an atheist or an agnostic, you'll be completely on board and happy to tag along with Maher as he travels the globe asking people about their faith â€" everywhere from Jerusalem to the Vatican to Amsterdam, where he finds not only the Cannabis Ministry but also a Muslim gay bar (with two people in it)." John Anderson of Newsday wrote: "much that's funny, insightful and thought-provoking. But it certainly doesn't give the religious a lot of slack."
The documentary received some negative reviews, with Rick McGinnis of Metro concluding that, "Maher is preaching to the choir with an undisguised dishonesty that only the true believers will forgive." James Berardinelli wrote, "If the subject of religion is as important to Maher as he claims during his end comments, then he should have followed those words with actions and made a movie that's more than a sum of inauthentic interviews, ranting attacks, and obvious observations. The choir may hum along with Maher but the rest of those watching this movie will be singing the blues." Nick Schager of Slant Magazine called it an "atheistic wannabe-dissection of modern faith."
In a review for The New York Times, Stephen Holden notes that when Maher "turns from evangelical Christianity to Judaism and Islam, its tone becomes uncertain and its rhythm choppy". Sam Greenspan argues that "Jewish people seemed to get handled with kid gloves" by Maher. Muslims however, are portrayed as relentlessly anti-Semitic.
In his review Stephen Holden also wrote that "the movie has the same loose, on-the-road structure" as Larry Charles' previous film Borat: Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan and commented: "Much of Mr. Maher’s film is extremely funny in a similarly irreverent, offhanded way." Claudia Puig of USA Today wrote: "those with a taste for irreverent humor and clear-eyed analysis will find it funny, enlightening and disturbing." Kirk Honeycutt of The Hollywood Reporter characterized the film as "An often hilarious but relentlessly shallow attack on religious fundamentalism by humorist Bill Maher". Louis Peitzman of the San Francisco Bay Guardian wrote that "It doesn't even matter that he goes out of his way to be offensive, as he's consistently funny enough to pull it off." Scott Indrisek wrote at Style.com that: "Religulous earns many of its laughs from skillful editing, with Maher's interviews jazzed up by video clips". Ben Kenigsberg of Time Out New York gave the film a rating of three out of six stars, and wrote: "The worst scenes in Religulous are appalling for their methods; the best are appalling for their information."
The 3rd Annual Independent Investigative Group IIG Awards presented an award to Religulous recognizing the promotion of science and critical thinking in popular media on May 18, 2009.
Christ myth theory
In the movie, during a debate with a Christian, Maher repeats a version of Christ myth theory derived from Gerald Massey's 1907 thesis that the myth of the Egyptian deity Horus was the source of the story of Jesus. Specifically, he claims that Egyptian Book of the Dead says that Horus was born to a virgin, baptized by "Anup the Baptizer" who was later beheaded. He was tempted in the desert, cast out demons, walked on water, had twelve disciples, and was crucified and resurrected after three days. Professor emeritus of Egyptology at the University of Basel Erik Hornung has also made the parallels between Christianity and ancient Egypt, and Professor emeritus of theology at the University of Copenhagen Thomas L. Thompson concludes that accounts of Jesus were mythical in nature and based on earlier literature from Egypt among other countries.
Following the publication of Tom Harpur's The Pagan Christ in 2004, Christian theologian W. Ward Gasque composed an e-mail to twenty Egyptologists whom he considered leaders of the field, including Professor Emeritus of Egyptology at the University of Liverpool Kenneth Kitchen, and Professor of Egyptology at the University of Toronto Ron Leprohan. The e-mail detailed the comparisons originated by Massey, combined with other speculations derived from Alvin Boyd Kuhn by Maher's source, Christ Myth theorist Tom Harpur. Ten out of twenty responded. Those who responded unanimously dismissed the proposed etymologies for "Jesus" and "Christ", and one unspecified Egyptologist referred to Kuhn's comparison as "fringe nonsense."
Bart Ehrman dismisses the idea that the story of Jesus is an invention based on pagan myths of dying-and-rising gods, maintaining that the early Christians were influenced by Jewish ideas, not Greek or Roman ones,repeatedly insisting that the idea that there was never such a person as Jesus is not seriously considered by historians or experts in the field at all. And classical historian Michael Grant wrote that:
If we apply to the New Testament, as we should, the same sort of criteria as we should apply to other ancient writings containing historical material, we can no more reject Jesus' existence than we can reject the existence of a mass of pagan personages whose reality as historical figures is never questioned.
DVD release
Lions Gate Entertainment released the film on DVD February 17, 2009. Special features on the DVD include a commentary with Bill Maher and director Larry Charles, deleted scenes, and extended Bill Maher monologues from around the world that were either edited down or not included in the film at all.
Sequel
On January 4, 2015 Maher tweeted out a photo of himself and director Larry Charles with the caption "Director Larry Charles on the Hawaii trip this year...was "Religulous II" discussed??", suggesting the possibility of a sequel.
See also
- Jesus Camp
- Jesus Christ in comparative mythology
- Marjoe
- Religious satire
- The God Who Wasn't There
- Kumaré
References
External links
- Religulous at AllMovie
- Religulous at Box Office Mojo
- Religulous at the Internet Movie Database
- Religulous at Metacritic
- Religulous at Rotten Tomatoes